


on a gathering storm

by estora



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Formerly Tranquil Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Gen, Mage Inquisitor (Dragon Age), One Shot, Ostwick Circle (Dragon Age), Tranquil Inquisitor, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:34:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25526005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estora/pseuds/estora
Summary: It ends like this: with the smell of cooked flesh and burnt hair, sour and sharp, evoking the memory of the first person she killed from the deep recesses of her mind, and she wonders how she could ever have forgotten it in the first place.Ellaria Trevelyan, and the fall of the Ostwick Circle.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 8





	on a gathering storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [missdreawrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missdreawrites/gifts).



It ends like this: with the smell of cooked flesh and burnt hair, sour and sharp, evoking the memory of the first person she killed from the deep recesses of her mind, and she wonders how she could ever have forgotten it in the first place.

The boy had only been a year older than her, thirteen to her twelve. She recalls his blue eyes and golden hair, a face that the Maker himself could have carved, the heartbreaker of the group, his sneer and his bruising hands and the press of his greedy mouth upon hers, but she doesn’t recall his name. That’s the worst part, she thinks – not the bodies of the Templars around her, smoke rising from their singed clothes under their armour, not the vacant stare of the young girl who tries to cover her body with her shredded robes for modesty, not the crackle of electricity flickering at the tips of her fingers, not the scent of death in the chamber. She can’t even remember that poor, stupid boy’s name, because that’s all he was – a stupid boy.

He used to tug at her hair and poke her arms, and he called her names and said she wasn’t a real Trevelyan. “It’s just because he likes you,” the other girls said, but that never made sense to Ellaria. If he liked her, why couldn't he be nice? She thinks she could have liked him back if he wasn’t so mean, if he wasn’t so rough, if he hadn’t seemed so angry when he cornered her in the garden.

There were so many other things she could have done. She could have run – he wasn’t that much stronger than her, just taller, and she’d brawled enough with Alec and his friends to know how to get away. She could have called for help – Alec was nearby, and he always, always came to her aid, whether or not she wanted it. But when the boy’s hands pinned her shoulders against the wall and his mouth covered hers, the first time anyone had ever kissed her, her mind went blank and her heart pounded in her chest and it felt wrong, wrong, _wrong_ , and instead of pushing him off or crying for help she felt something sharp rising her chest, felt the hair on her arms rise, felt the tips of her fingers crackle and burn and then suddenly, suddenly –

The boy was thrown back a hundred yards, his body twisted and fried and his skin marred with the red and purple scars of a lightning strike. She knows she screamed because her throat burned but she heard nothing because her ears were bleeding, the crack of lightning and thunder deafening her and blinding her until she felt her brother lift her into his arms to carry her away from the corpse that smelled of cooked flesh and burnt hair.

 _It was an accident_ , she remembers sobbing as the Templars yanked her from Alec’s hold, hard enough to pull her shoulder from its socket that wouldn’t be set for days, _I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it._

They say that the sense of smell is most closely associated with memory. When she smells the burnt flesh of the Templars, their armour conducting the worst of the lightning strikes and cooking them from the inside out, it is like remembering a memory of a dream and she feels like that twelve-year-old girl all over again, stunned and shaken and terrified, _it was an accident_ , _I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it_ , and _I'm glad_.

And she’d forgotten.

There were three Templars; two had kept their helmets on, as if covering their faces would make them invincible, would make them immune to the consequences of their crimes. Ellaria clenches her fists and quells the sparks of lightning dancing between her fingers, slows her breath, and helps the girl they’d tried to violate to her feet while the Right of Annulment rages through the Circle.

“You have to get out of here,” Ellaria says. The girl blinks at her with empty brown eyes, the sunburst brand on her forehead somehow more engaging than her undilated pupils, unfazed and unconcerned with what has just occurred. “They’ll send more to kill us. Do you know the way out through the kitchens?”

“Yes,” the girl – Sharn, Ellaria thinks her name is, it’s hard to recall when the number of Tranquil in the Circle tripled in a mere month – intones.

“Then go,” Ellaria says, and covers Sharn’s shoulders with a robe as she pushes her towards the door. She looks out; the coast is clear, for now. Her sight seems sharper, her pulse faster – adrenaline pounding through her body, finally awake after so many years asleep. She shoves Sharn out and nudges her towards the stairs. “Faster! You’re emotionless, not handicapped. Go as quickly as you can, don’t stop, don’t look back, defend yourself if you must. Take whatever food you can from the kitchens. I’ll hold off the Templars for as long as I can and meet you there with the other Tranquil when I find them.”

“What of the mages?” Sharn queries, so calm and patient, surely not because she feels concern but because it’s the logical thing to ask.

If Sharn could still feel, if she had her emotions, if her mind and identity and life had not been so cruelly stripped from her by the same men who would have violated her twice over, Ellaria doubts she would have asked after them because the mages, the men and women of the Circle who had once been her brethren, were either complicit in the Templars’ crimes or they have already fled and abandoned those who need them the most.

“Forget them,” Ellaria orders. “Go. _Now!_ ”

* * *

It ends like this: with Templars pinned in corners, burning in the fires of rage demons and abominations; mages doubled over and heaving with pain when they are struck by a blinding Holy Smite; smoke choking the corridors and screams echoing through the tower and blood pouring down the stairs like waterfalls, the rebellion finally gripping Ostwick. 

She steps over the corpse of the Senior Enchanter, whose broken body lies strewn at the base of the stairs leading to her office. Rebellious mage seeking revenge, or a rampaging Templar purging the tower of even those complicit in their oppression? Impossible to tell, and she doesn’t care.

Ellaria Trevelyan kills six more Templars on her way to and from the library, half in self-defence, half out of rage, because when she reaches the burning stacks the Tranquil are already dead, slice by swords or beaten with heavy metal shields, and no one was there to protect them.

By the time she reaches the kitchens, Sharn is already dead – her body on the floor and blood pooling under her robes, her glassy eyes open and forever unseeing, and the Templars are laughing, and Ellaria – Ellaria feels that sharpness in her chest, feels the hair on her arms rise, feels the tips of her fingers crackle and burn as the scream in her throat rises so she can make them _pay_ , and then suddenly, suddenly –

The Smite strikes her between her ribs, like a punch to her gut and a slap to the face, and she is doubled over and dry heaving from the loss of her magic, gagging from the pain, and she’s too weak to fight back when a gloved hand fists in her short hair and yanks her head back.

“Well, well. If it isn’t the Trevelyan girl,” the Templar snarls, his curdled-milk breath hot against her cheek. “The Tranquil Whisperer.”

“She was defenceless, they all were,” Ellaria gasps, and another hand twists her arm behind her back. The tears in her eyes are not from pain or grief, they burn hot like the fire in her chest, they sting like the poison in her throat. “They couldn’t find back, they couldn’t do _anything_. You monsters, you absolute fucking _monsters_ –”

Another hand strikes her face and snaps her head to the side, her vision exploding into bright lights and black spots.

“You should have been made Tranquil the day you arrived,” one of them spits. “But your brother paid us too much to get away with it.”

Alec – oh, Alec. Protecting her, even when she didn’t know it.

The hand trails up her chest, between her breasts, around her neck and grips. She struggles, chokes, and the Templar’s grin is just like the boy’s sneer, his hands just as bruising. “But you know what? Your brother’s payments are useless to us now.”

* * *

It ends like this –

with bruising hands and steel-capped knees crushing her down against the cold stone floor, her arms and legs and throat pinned by monsters wearing the faces of men, the nightmares of the Fade come to life to end hers –

It ends like this –

with the magic crackling at her fingertips so raw she bleeds, the sting of electricity in the air sharp enough to taste and the smell of burnt flesh and clothes enough to make her sick with what she has done but she doesn’t regret it, she’d do it again and again and again and she will never apologise, never plead, _never_ beg for mercy no matter how much they taunt her –

It ends –

with tears streaming down her cheeks, the sunburst brand searing into her forehead like lyrium, like fire, like lightning, with everything she has ever felt and will ever feel, with all of her fear and rage and terror and despair and lightning lodged in her chest, her throat, choking her, echoing around the chamber –

– _like this_ –

suddenly gone, and then there is nothing, nothing at all.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-shot, more of a conceptual piece that belongs to the "Herald and her Shield" shared universe with my beloved missdreawrites - the brother character Alec Trevelyan belongs to her! I hope you enjoyed this snapshot of a larger, more elaborate universe. I may write more one-shots in this universe and post them, I may not, depends on how much free time I get.
> 
> If you like my writing, come follow me on my [Tumblr](https://hlmoorewrites.tumblr.com/deathsembrace) \- I've written a book and the sequel will be out by the end of 2020!


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